MAN
by Firelordawesome123
Summary: We begin here with a question: What is the meaning of life? In the early times, man would be born into a family, a housewife mother and a strong father whose job was to provide for his family, and be expected to grow up and live up to his father's strengths. Then the cycle continues until the earth is no longer carrying man...(read more inside)


**Author's Note:** _The character (Man) was based off of Drakken, though I didn't intend to post this on here so it really isn't him (it's man). It was just so good (I actually think it's one of my best works), I had to share it! Again, I wrote it with Drakken in mind, so there are similarities, but there are probably some differences ( for example, he's not blue and he's more on the quiet side than the loud, obnoxious, taking-over-the-world Drakken we all know and love)_

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MAN

We begin here with a question: What is the meaning of life? In the early times, man would be born into a family, a housewife mother and a strong father whose job was to provide for his family, and be expected to grow up and live up to his father's strengths. Then the cycle continues until the earth is no longer carrying man.

But what if that cycle gets broken? What if man is no longer there to provide for his family? What happens next? Well, for one boy that happened to him; his cycle got broken. His clothes soaked in the rain as he watched the taxi car disappear into the darkness, the cries of his mother ringing in his ears. And as he watched the car blend into the rainy night of September, confused and hurt, he made a vow to himself.

The man promised himself that he would show the world, and his father, that he was meant for greatness, that he didn't need what people consider to be the function of man, _love,_ to keep him alive. As he got older, he began to distance himself from the world, ignoring his mother's desires to smother him with her love and resenting anyone who looked down on him, which were quite a few people. Most people considered the man as the definition of nerd; he wore round, geeky glasses well into his twenties and always had to be top in his class (if anyone showed the slightest sign of having a greater IQ than him, he immediately hated them), and his fashion style spoke nineteen eighty-nine, even though it was well into the mid-nineties.

His downfall happened in college. With his high IQ and determination of success, he got accepted to one of the greatest schools in his state. Here, again, he faced laughter and mocking from other people, and here, again, he resented every one of them. He faced a promising future in his freshmen year, making the Dean's list multiple times and taking pride in the way his professors beamed at his genius. It wasn't until sophomore year that things began to take a turn for the worse. He was in the lab when the incident happened. His class was working on their final, and it was especially nerve racking having the professor hover over him as he tried to mix in the right ingredients. He glanced up at his professor and gave him a nervous smile as he poured in the next ingredient. The last thing he saw before giant flames and smoke was his professor's wide eyes and opened mouth as he tried to stop the man from pouring in the wrong mixture. It wasn't the fact that he burned down an entire building that made him drop out of college; it was the humiliation that came with it. Everywhere he turned students would point and laugh at him, he was no longer aloud to work in labs unsupervised, and he was in debt from rebuilding the building he had destroyed.

After he dropped out there was nowhere else to go but down. That's when he started his crime career. In his eyes, everybody looked down on him and, in his eyes, they all had to pay. When he wasn't in jail, he was thinking or doing some crime that would eventually put him in jail. By this time in his life his determination for greatness slowly faded and his ambition to be heard by the world became too powerful. His friends, the only people who didn't look down on him, partly because they were on equal grounds as him, were all criminals, either in jail or on the run. His mother was completely blinded by the man's acts and continued to embrace him with her love, which he happily ignored.

It was in this period of his life when man met woman. Yes, she was quite a bit younger than he was, but they were mentally the same age. From the time they met and until the time they died, they both were one in mind; though, it changed throughout the years.

And it was in this period of his life when he began, slowly, feeling happy again. The feeling he forgot ever existed; the feeling he thought didn't exist anymore. And suddenly, as he looks at the woman he adores with his manly arms wrapped around her, he's back to being a boy again, sitting on his living room carpet playing with his toy cars as his father walks in from a long day of work and pats the top of his son's head before walking into the kitchen to see what meal his wife had prepared for him that night. He remembers his father dancing with his mother to the music that played on their small radio and the sounds, which he now remembers as laughter, coming out of their mouths as they moved as one around the kitchen. And he also remembers, after the music had stopped and the late night was awakening, the shadow of his parents sitting on the kitchen table, their voices low so they wouldn't wake the boy who was already up. His father's voice seemed threatening as he forced his mouth not to shout and slammed his fists hard on the kitchen table; his mother's voice spoke softer than his father's and she kept her hands firmly on the flat surface, trying to prevent the table from shaking…

"What's the matter," the woman he adores had said, making him leave his memories and come back to the present. The man realized he had been staring at his equal for quite a while and, by the look on her face, it was starting to make her feel a bit uncomfortable. He simply responded with a small smile and removed his gaze from her.

He was never a man of words; the man always used gestures and shrugs whenever someone approached him. It wasn't because he had a speech problem or anything, he just didn't know what to say; he didn't know how to say it. He spoke very little as a boy and in his school years he spoke only through the book. And he didn't have many people to communicate with; he had no friends growing up and his mother talked so much he wondered how she had time to breathe. His way of communicating now with his friends, now that he's got them, was hiding under the bridge with a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other, listening to the sirens pass by above them.

And as time passed by, he began to grow tired of reliving the same day over and over again; hiding from the police or being put into questioning, it all grew tiresome for him. Something was missing in his life and he had no idea what. When he spoke of this to the woman he adores, she simply brushed it off as a mid-life crisis. He would be approaching forty-six this year and his equal was absolutely right, he was terrified about it. But the more he thought about the something missing, the more he knew that turning forty-six had nothing to do with it. Everyone around him seemed to be getting older with him; most of his friends were either facing life in prison or retiring from a life of crime. Maybe he needed a break from the crime life… maybe that's what was missing in his life. He didn't know.

The day arrived and he awoke as a forty-six year-old man, still searching for that something that was missing. He didn't do much that day, mostly watching television while his other half planned for his surprise party that he wasn't suppose to know about. And when the clock strikes ten, he would get a call from his lovely other wanting him to go get something from somewhere or meet her somewhere that would end up with all his friends jumping out and yelling "SURPRISE" at the top of their lungs as he fakes a surprised expression and goes to greet his friends and thank them for coming. And then the woman he adores will come out with a birthday cake with forty-six candles on it and he'd pretend to make a wish before blowing out all the candles. Well, that's how it's been for the past five years. But that usual call never came. It was now almost midnight and his other half still hadn't called or even shown up, for that matter. He wasn't worried about her, she could take care of herself and if he _was_ worried and expressed that worry toward her, she would get offended and would scold him for not thinking she's capable of taking care of herself. The man just thought that she finally got the hint that he would rather not celebrate the day he was born, the worse reminder of how old he was.

Twelve twenty-five was the time she showed up. She gave him a small kiss on the cheek before slumping down next to him on the couch. He glanced at her through the corner of his eyes, she looked exhausted. The man turned to her and gave a look that she read as "Where've you been?" and so she told him.

Months have passed and things have changed. It was only up until this point that the man realized how foolish he's actually been all these years; hating his father for not being there when he should have been loving his mother who was there (which he would soon call and apologize for), becoming angry at people he would never see again and probably don't even remember the man. Why did he have to focus on the bad when there was so much good?

Somuch good, he thought, so, _so_ much good.

And now as he stands before the doctor, who he's quite familiar with, he can't help but feel nervous. His mind was changing; his views on the world were suddenly different now and the promise he made to himself all those years ago no longer had control over him... The man was so caught up in his thoughts about days that have gone and future days that will come that he almost didn't hear the doctor say, "You may go in now." But he did hear. And so he did go in.

Remember how the man wanted to know where the woman he adores had been on his birthday and she didn't show up until late in the night? Well, she was off driving around the city, gathering all her thoughts about her doctor's appointment from that morning. It was then, the conversation woman had to man, that the man finally knew what was missing in his life, though he was skeptical at the time.

It wasn't until he opened the door and saw the woman he loved lying in the hospital bed, tired and weak, but oh so beautiful, that he was sure that he had found what he was missing. He was missing _her_; the one that lay sleeping in her mother's arms.

And so we end with an answer to a question: What is the meaning of life? Man can be so blind when it comes to the true meaning of life. They float on a river that leads them to a waterfall; most of them are so worried about getting ahead that when it's time to fall down that waterfall, they wish they could go back to floating down the river. And the answer of the meaning of life is life itself. It's the people you love and who love you back. It's the memories of the times you'll never live again and the happiness you'll always have inside of you. And for this man in particular, it was the creation he never thought could be created. It was love he never thought could be formed. It was happiness.


End file.
